Canadian Georges St-Pierre to headline UFC 129 in Toronto

The UFC will finally break ground in Toronto, Ontario on April 30, as it will host its first ever event in Canada’s largest city. The mixed martial arts organization has been trying to get licensed in the province for years, but has always been turned down until now. The provincial government said the sport was too dangerous, but it seems the money that the event will bring into the city and province was too good to turn down. Of course, everybody can be bought for a price and governments are prime examples of this.

The UFC 129 event is scheduled to take place at the 60,000-seat Rogers Centre Stadium, which is the home of the Toronto Blues Jays MLB baseball team. The card is guaranteed to be a sell out no matter who’s fighting on it, but a bonus for Canadian fans is the fact that Georges St-Pierre (21-2) of Quebec, Canada will be headlining the show as the UFC Welterweight Champion is scheduled to take on Jake Shields (26-4-1).

This will be St-Pierre’s second consecutive defence of his title in his home country as he beat Josh Koscheck by a unanimous decision back at UFC 124 in Montreal, Canada in December. Shields is the former Strikeforce middleweight champion and he beat Martin Kampmann in his debut in the octagon. The fight card will also feature some other exciting matchups as there’s a light heavyweight bout scheduled former champion Lyoto Machida and Randy Couture, a UFC hall of famer.

The event is likely to set a new North American attendance record for the UFC as it’s expected that about up to 40,000 fans will attend. However, it all comes down to how the arena is set up. The Rogers Centre once attracted 68,000 fans for a Wrestlemania event, but it’s doubtful the UFC 120 event will match that because of the seating arrangement. The record crowd for a UFC card in North America is 23,152 which was set at UFC 124 in Montreal.

While some fights may change to injuries etc., these are the bouts that are scheduled to take place at UFC 129 in Toronto on April 30: